Climate Change: Dimensions and Future Directions

The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, was not exaggerating when he said in July 2023 that the era of global warming has ended, and the era of global boiling has arrived. He warned of the speed of climate change and a catastrophe facing the entire planet. Equally serious, a UN report indicated that only 24 out of 193 nations fulfilled their pledges to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, to take stronger climate action.

Human activities have caused serious climate change, threatening ecosystems, economic and social development, health, and the well-being of people. It has now become difficult to recover fully and soon from the impacts of climate change on the planet.

Therefore, climate action has become imperative and should naturally be the top priority of the world, along with other serious strategic challenges such as terrorism, extremism, and international conflicts and crises taking place in various regions. This means that the upcoming COP28, to be hosted by the UAE at the end of 2023, comes at a critical time, making it extremely important as a milestone in dealing with climate change globally.

Humanity has an urgent collective responsibility to step up efforts to fight climate change, which is one of the most serious challenges in the 21st century, given the rise in air and sea temperatures to record levels, the change in rainfall patterns, the widespread melting of ice, rising sea levels, and successive environmental disasters.

The repercussions of climate change extend beyond the environment to include economies, security, health, and other aspects of life. Taking immediate action to adapt and fight the current and future impacts of climate change could help control the phenomenon and reduce its associated risks. Accelerating investment in renewable energy sources could bring new hope to humanity by controlling the phenomenon and its implications before they hit irreversible levels.

The global nature of climate change calls for collective global action because its impacts do not differentiate between continents or nations, although some countries are more affected than others. A hurricane in the United States; cyclones, torrential rains, and floods in Asia; a water and food crisis and mass displacement in the Middle East; or record heatwaves all affect many countries, including European countries, which have not seen such incidents before.

In this book, “Climate Change: Dimensions and Future Directions,” we discuss climate change through 11 in-depth studies that shed light on the various dimensions of climate change and their impacts on the entire world. The book tackles the repercussions of climate change on armies, terrorism, and water security and how to address the consequences. We seek to understand the role of scientific and technological developments, such as artificial intelligence (AI), in climate adaptation at a time when world leaders are meeting at the COP28 summit to develop climate action frameworks and a roadmap for climate adaptation and mitigation.